Articles Posted in the " Losail International Circuit " Category

The 2007 World Champion Casey Stoner will attempt to make it three consecutive season-opening victories in Qatar on Sunday having qualified in pole position at the floodlit Losail International Circuit on Saturday.

In stark contrast to his pole-setting new team-mate Casey Stoner in Qatar, Nicky Hayden is suffering a nightmare weekend at the Losail International Circuit and may not be able to race on Sunday after a heavy crash in qualifying.

Trying to improve on his 16th place on the grid at the end of Saturday night’s 45-minute qualifying practice at the floodlit desert circuit the 2006 World Champion suffered a spectacular highside that has left him battered, bruised and doubtful for his Ducati Marlboro debut.

Rossi and Gibernau feature in MotoGP quintet as they set the scene for season curtain-raiser.

The time for talk ahead of the start of the MotoGP season was almost over on Thursday in Losail, but the last platform for the riders was raised for the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar press conference. The media gathering saw five riders expressing their views, reviewing their preseason and -in the case of two famous faces- putting their differences to bed before the second MotoGP night race.

Valentino Rossi begins the defence of his MotoGP World Championship this weekend, and the Fiat Yamaha rider is in high spirits ahead of the first race of the year. Rival Casey Stoner may seem to have the beating of him at the Losail International Circuit, but Rossi has a strong belief in his Yamaha M1 and is sure to have a strategy in mind for the season-opener.

Five months on from the final race of the 2008 MotoGP World Championship, the 2009 edition of the series starts up on April 12th with the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar. The first of seventeen races to decide who will be crowned the king of the premier class takes place at the Losail International Circuit in the Arab emirate, opening up the action for the third consecutive year.

The only night race on the MotoGP calendar, the Commercialbank Grand Prix of Qatar is a showpiece event for both the state and the World Championship.

Doha, Qatar is well worth a visit, despite being halfway around the world. The people are friendly, they like Americans, and the modern city is essentially crime-free. But, it is Losail International Circuit’s grippy and smooth track surface that makes the trip to the first stop on the MotoGP calendar so very much worthwhile.